New HP shortfic [Heavy-ish HBP Spoilers]

[zerl]

So what was I doing while being stuck in endless queues enjoying the expo, and being stuck on unmoving trains coming back to my home that was thankfully intact from the earthquake

Comments

Re: concrit/betaing

[zerl]

Thank you so much for your crit! Aw, but you haven't read the book? You must!! I'm sorry to have spoiled it for you.

Yes. Yes, the last line... I really don't like it. Actually I've rewritten it about five times since I posted it -- bad me:P -- and it's still not working. I've turned it back to what it was on my second or third try: "devoid of all emotions." (Was: "I have ridded it of all emotions.")

But I think I need a stronger closure.

What I wanted to do with the story -- which if I have to explain it it's a pretty bad sign -- was to basically say that, here's Severus, whose operation depends on not feeling too much, and he has to suppress his emotions to stay alive, but Dumbledore asks him to do this horrible thing that you can't possibly do without feeling. It's terrible when you read the book -- he's feeling so much pain, when he's in this scene he has with Harry, but you know that in just a couple of minutes he'll have to shut it all out, or he won't survive Voldemort's inspections as Albus wished him to do. (Or that's how *I* read it, anyway. It's controversial.)

Er, this is getting too long... What I'm getting at is, so I felt I needed not just Snape POV but his voice, to put us into his head where the action is. That, and I tried to do an unreliable narrator and failed quite miserably... And, if I wrote it in 3rd person the overuse of "he" would make the whole thing even more unintelligible, since I wanted Snape to avoid referring to Albus at all except with "he." He can't bear to focus on the concept of the man, much less call him by name. Or so I wanted to say, but I'm having a feeling things don't quite work that way in English!

Re: concrit/betaing

[indywind]

The last line--the idea is strong; i could feel what you were trying for.

In fact, all along I could feel that you were trying for that tension between feeling deeply and having to repress those emotions even more strongly. It's an unbearable position.

Likely I'll get around to reading the book eventually, when I'm caught up on my other reading... ::eyes undiminishing "to be read" stack suspiciously:: Mostly I like the fanon better than the canon in HP, though.